In our chat with
Mayank Jain we discovered how everything is connected,
from poker to mindfulness.
In his eventful life so far,
Mayank has done coding, built and sold a music company,
and is now a professional poker player.
That’s right.
Read on to know how Mayank does it!
You grew up in different cities.
Which one would you call home the most?
I wish I could answer that with absolute certainty.
They’ve all had their contribution in making me the person I am today.
I spent my early years in Alwar as the youngest kid in a joint family.
The warmth and love I received then has stayed with me.
I grew up in a bigger city –
Indore, where I’ve spent the most formative years of my life.
Roorkee is where I grew from a generic teenager to,
an adult with his own unique personality.
You see my conundrum now 🙂
From coding to founding a music company.
How did that happen?
I was listening to an Indian band one night.
Their music was very powerful to me.
But I was surprised to learn that the band had broken apart
and their music couldn’t be bought online.
I took this as a personal offence.
The idea to solve this problem
of bands not being able to make a living through just music gripped me.
It wouldn’t leave even if I wanted to do something else.
And the rest is history.
You live in one of the most beautiful places of India – Goa.
Tell us about some of the places in Goa that you happened to stumble upon
and love and that are not known to the general population.
Honestly, I haven’t explored Goa during the last 6 months that much.
My purpose of coming here was to focus on work
and Goa has been very enabling in that.
But I can tell you some of my favourites –
Dali bar (the only bar closest to my home which is open till early morning,
and they play damn good music),
Shree (best banoffee pie),
and the art galleries – The Cube, MOG.
Friendship is an excellent byproduct of travel.
Have you met people on your travels who have been lasting friends?
Yes!
The Goans I met at Ziro Festival of Music who had camped right next to ours.
Or the Mexican girl I met at Auroville –
I’ve still managed to keep in touch with even after 3 years.
What’s the wildest thing you have done or experienced on your travels?
I would say that driving straight from Chandartal
to Kasol in one day would be right up there.
It was exhausting to say the least.
The saving grace was that two of our friends were waiting for us in Kasol.
So, by the time we reached after 14 hours,
it was good to see friendly faces
and warm food (they had already ordered for us in advance).
The second would be performing a couple of songs in a pub in Thimpu.
There was a band performing there
and we wondered aloud that it’d be fun to play here (I play guitar).
And the most enthusiastic person in our group went
and spoke to the manager who obliged.
I was drunk and I don’t think I played a single chord in tune,
but the spirit in the air and in people’s bellies made for a wonderful evening.
The songs were Wish You Were Here and BC Sutta:)
How has mindfulness changed the way you travel?
Were you able to discover new aspects to yourself?
Value-changers –
this is a term used for things which change what we value in our lives.
For some,
it is LSD,
for others vipassana.
Mindfulness was one such thing for me. Its impact on my travel has been
this – instead of looking for my next fix,
or next spot,
or the next adventure,
I try to soak in whatever is present in front me.
I look for depth in my travels rather than breadth.
Playing poker,
for a living has to be
one of the most interesting professions we have come across!
Do you balance it with a corporate job?
If not, do you foresee yourself doing so?
Nope.
There is no need to balance it with a job.
Playing poker is a job in itself.
A professional cricketer
or a tennis player isn’t expected to have a corporate job.
The same goes for poker.
Much like any other sport, apart from the actual playing,
I spend a lot of time studying and improving my game.
So nor do I have the time or the interest for a corporate job.
Of course there are semi-pros who do that,
but I’ve taken the leap to become a complete professional.
We read that your ambition is to live in Europe and play poker.
Which is the one city you would go to in a blink if you could and why?
Budapest –
I watched a documentary on it once and I fell in love with the place.
Culture, lifestyle, landscape in and around – everything.
In what ways do you contribute to responsible travel?
I guess spreading positive stories from the place is my method.
I don’t do anything out of the ordinary.
I mean on treks, yes,
I did learn to carry trash bags
and pick up garbage that people have left behind on the trails.
And maintaining basic decency in keeping the place clean
and showing respect to the locals is the minimum
that you can expect from a responsible traveller.
What is your own personal travel quote that you live by?
I don’t know if it is a quote
or just something I heard but it goes something like this –
“Travel brings out the best version of yourself”.
There is a deeper meaning behind the obvious inference of this quote.
I believe that all of us have a default version.
This default version improves
or worsens depending upon the people we are with and the surroundings.
Travel improves this default version
and increases the chances of a better version coming out in more situations.
It is a very interesting topic to me
and I am actually writing a detailed post about it.
Thank you for this interesting conversation Mayank!
We wish you all the very best in your poker career
and, of course, travels!
You can find Mayank on Twitter and Instagram.
All pictures courtesy Mayank.
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